After our weekend of fun in Ica, I only had nine more days before I was leaving Esperanza de Ana! Since we were nearing the end of the year, not only was work busy, but there were special programs with the kids and families to celebrate the holidays. I didn’t want to miss out on experiencing any of that because I was overwhelmed with work, so I tried extra hard to plan out my schedule, blocking out the special programs and being extra productive during my work times.

I’m going to focus this post on the non-work events of my final days, and next time, I’ll talk about work. Even though I was only around for 10 days of December, I think those days were more eventful than any other month in terms of the electrical work!

Sunset!

With the Christmas season and the end of the school year approaching, there was a lot of fun happening during my last week. We had two Christmas events, one with just the kids and one with the entire families. At the kids’ event, each class performed a dance or song, and it was so fun to watch! The age 2-3 class is all girls, and they danced to Spanish “Let It Go” while wearing Ana and Elsa dresses (yes, the Frozen craze is international) and looking like it was the best day of their lives. It was adorable. After all the classes performed, they got their Christmas presents. Each teacher picked a boy gift and girl gift for her class, and I was amazed by how well they did at picking things everyone would like. That’s a hard job!

Sometimes, I think the teachers have their kids do things for their own entertainment. One of the teachers had a couple of “donkeys” dancing during their performance. The girl in the caboose of the front donkey is the sister of the girl in the front, and she was doing the BEST little prancing feet. Like I said, no idea how necessary this actually was for the performance, but I certainly appreciated it.

The next day, we celebrated family Christmas. You know how, when you’re used to seeing someone in one context, it’s disorienting to see them in another? Like when you see your elementary school teacher at the grocery store or a coworker outside of the office. Seeing the kids with their siblings and parents felt like that. Of course, I knew their parents existed, but I never had any reason to meet them because my job was separate from that part of the ministry. I loved getting to see another side of the kids and pick out which ones are like exact mini-replicas of their parents. We sang some Christmas songs, and then things got competitive. Each teacher planned a game for her class, and the kids played with a parent as their partner.

Ready for family Christmas!Building a balloon snowman… and struggling.They needed an extra person for a few of the games, and I quickly volunteered myself as a stand-in (because who doesn’t like games?!).

This is my favorite team-building challenge… you’re supposed to walk and keep the balloons between you without holding them in place, and you do laps while adding a person and a balloon each time. It’s hilarious. We did EA staff vs. some of the moms, and we were like a well-oiled machine. It wasn’t very fair. Also, I don’t understand why my focus face is me sticking my tongue out, but clearly I was VERY focused when this photo was taken.

After the games, everyone crammed into the cafeteria for a Chocolatada, a Peruvian Christmas tradition where people gather together to enjoy panetón and Peruvian hot chocolate. Panetón is similar to a fruit cake and originated in Italy. Now, it’s been co-opted as the official Peruvian Christmas bread. The classic has dried fruit inside, or there are variations like one that replaces the fruit with chocolate. Now, that sounds like something I could get behind… but the bread itself is orange-flavored! I despise oranges, so as you can imagine, I can’t quite get into panetón. Peruvians looove panetón and everyone buys them (I don’t think anyone makes them) and gives them to everyone else for the holidays. It’s kind of like Christmas cookies in the States but not homemade and not delicious (in my personal opinion, at least, which clearly isn’t that of the majority).

Anyway, part two of this tradition is hot chocolate, but it’s like no hot chocolate you’ve ever experienced. It’s made with evaporated milk and special chocolate bars (rather than powder), so it’s incredibly thick. Then, you add cloves and cinnamon and BUTTER because obviously the evaporated milk wasn’t thick enough. And then you drink this with your panetón and feel like you’ll never eat again. Don’t get me wrong, it was good… but one cup was enough to hold me over for the rest of my life. Oh yeah, and remember that Christmas is during Peruvian SUMMER, so you’re drinking this world’s thickest hot butter-and-chocolate while also sweating. WHY.

Pancho, Dora, me, and Delia. The three of them work in the kitchen together, and they’re a super fun bunch! They were also the ones responsible for the buttery hot chocolate preparation.Family Christmas photo! (pic by David, the EA photographer)

My second-to-last day of work was an in-service day. The EA program directors presented their 2020 action plans, and each planned a game to help break up the day. And that’s how I found myself playing musical chairs with my coworkers. I started next to Jim and told him “fair warning but I get a little competitive” which is true, but I was mostly kidding! He apparently took it as a threat. WELL, in the end, it was Jim, me, and one chair. When the music stopped, I was in position for a win. I committed to the sit… and Jim pulled the chair out from under me! He immediately felt guilty because I was clearly going to fall and tried to catch me which ended with both of us on the ground. I declared myself the winner because he had clearly cheated, and there were not only multiple witnesses, but video evidence! (Side note: I need to get myself a copy of that video…)

I tell you this story not because I want justice for this outrageous act but because it provides important context for what comes next. After this musical-chairs sabotage, Tony (Jim’s wife) approached me about being part of Jim’s birthday surprise. You see, it’s a Peruvian birthday tradition to crack an egg on the birthday person’s head. They were planning to sing for the three December birthday people, Jim, Julie, and me, so I would be in the perfect position to avoid raising suspicion. Previously, I had said I would never participate in a birthday egging because I would hate to have it done to me, but I felt like Jim had it coming! And so, this is the story of how I got my revenge on Jim but also a lesson about how vengeance is never the answer. Enjoy this video:

I’ll explain a couple of things:
The singing you hear is the tail end of the THREE birthday songs that are sung: Happy Birthday in English, Happy Birthday in Spanish, and Spanish Christian Happy Birthday. It’s endless.
I have the eggs stored in the waistband of my leggings so that I can clap along and keep Jim from getting suspicious (note for the future: pants with pockets recommended).
During the songs, he’s trying to tell Julie to get an egg to crack on MY head (rude, Jim), and she refuses (what a good friend)… and as the song ends, he pretends to crack one on me. Little does he know… Ha! Gotcha, Jim! But while he’s trying to wipe his egg residue on me (and I try to guilt him out of it because I had literally just showered), Eddy and Brenda run into the kitchen and get two eggs to crack on my head! Karma. And then Eddy chases Julie around the kitchen, she dodges one attack (the egg ends up on the floor), and after the video ends, she runs outside and he eventually gets her too.

Lessons learned: never celebrate a birthday in Peru, what goes around comes around, and hot water is not recommended when washing egg out of your hair.

Me, attempting to protect my clothes from the eggs, before I stole Julie’s strategy of rinsing my hair in the kitchen sink (with the help of Jocelyn… at least SOME PEOPLE are good friends). Note the egg white glistening on my arm -_-

After my day of trekking all over the universe with Badveli (you can read my last post HERE), all I wanted to do was sit on their comfy couch like a huge bum and go to sleep early. There was only one problem… it was Armenian Christmas Eve, and I was signed up to join the youth/young adult group in their overnight caroling. It’s a good thing that I really wanted to go because otherwise, I don’t know how I would have made it through the night. I took a 50ish minute nap when we got home and then dragged myself out of bed, feeling fresh, rested, and ready for some late-night singing! HA! That’s not true. I basically rolled out of bed and then zombied around for at least the next 45 minutes until my body woke up.

Family Christmas cardThe main Beirut Christmas tree.

Unlike most of the other Christians in Lebanon, the Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6th. I’ll give you the five-second explanation of why that is… everyone used to celebrate on the 6th of January. In the Roman Empire, there was a pagan holiday celebrating the birth of the sun on the 25th of December. They changed it to the celebration of the birth of the Son (hehe) and left January 6th as the Epiphany, or the revelation of Christ as God in the flesh. Armenians celebrate the birth and revelation of Christ on the same day (which is why the Armenian Christmas greeting says, “Christ is born AND revealed”) because they weren’t part of the Roman Empire and didn’t have the same pagan holiday problem.

Anyway, like I was saying, most of the Christians in Lebanon celebrate on December 25th. Since there’s such a significant Armenian population though, they leave up the Christmas decorations until January 6th, and Badveli said that they even replay the Christmas programming on TV! Isn’t that cool? It was also nice for me because it meant that I got to see the Christmas decorations even though I didn’t get to Lebanon until January.

Here’s a light sculpture to rival the Yerevan ones!Badveli and me inside the light sculpture

Speaking of Christmas decorations, we saw a ton of nativity scenes that didn’t quite get my stamp of approval. One thing that threw me off was that they were always in a cave instead of a barn-type structure like we usually show in the States. I didn’t have an issue with that, it was just interesting. Since I was with Badveli, of course that launched into a discussion about how we don’t actually know that it was a barn and it could have been a cave and it could have even been in a house because people often kept their animals inside their houses at night. Then that led to a discussion about how the way the Christmas story is told always makes it sound like a pregnant Mary was turned away from inn after inn by heartless innkeepers, but probably “there was no room for them” just means that there wasn’t an empty guest room, so they stayed in the living room with the animals which wasn’t a weird thing at the time. Yeah, I know. Brain cramp. I’ll stop.

Okay, back to the issue at hand… I did have one very big problem with most of them: scale. Picture this: a manger scene. Mary and Joseph. The wise men. A baby Jesus that is AT LEAST the size of Mary, if not larger. A sheep that is smaller than baby Jesus. The donkey that supposedly carried pregnant Mary for months and months is smaller than everything. I’m no expert, but a baby cannot be bigger than its mother. I know he’s God in human form and all, but that means he’s human… which means that at birth, he’s a normal baby size in relation to his mother. He is not bigger than a sheep. He is definitely not bigger than a donkey. He is definitely not bigger than a tree, unless that tree is just a seed. My favorite nativity looked like everyone in the congregation just brought in whatever animal figurines they had at home. It had some normal-sized sheep, some tiny ones, some plastic ones, some stuffed ones… I enjoyed it.

Wow so I’ve gotten veryyyy distracted. What was I talking about before I got all sidetracked? Do you even remember at this point? Oops. That’s right, caroling! So like I was saying long, long ago, I was signed up for Christmas Eve caroling. I guess this is something that all of the church youth groups do, and everyone seemed confused when I told them that I hadn’t been caroling in years, and midnight Christmas caroling isn’t really a thing at home. Basically this is how it works: the youth group is split into groups, each group is given a list of church members’ addresses, and they go from house to house caroling and getting donations. Unlike sane people who would do this during the day, we met at the church at 8PM(ish) and didn’t hit the road until about 9. We had something like 30 houses to visit and quickly fell into a rhythm of unloading ourselves from the van, getting buzzed into the building, singing a couple of songs, reciting a Bible verse, giving them the custom-made ornament that was this year’s gift, getting stuffed full of chocolates, and loading back into the van. I got so much chocolate that it was kind of like Christmas-style Halloween but with singing.

We went to a Christmas concert for an Armenian children’s choir. The director of this choir also directs another children’s choir in Artsakh!I. Love. Lights.

Badveli and Maria promised me that I wouldn’t have any trouble communicating because the other youth (for them, youth means like teenage to 30) could all speak English. They were right, and it was almost depressing. Everyone could speak PERFECT English. Like accent-less English. The kids in my group were telling each other wordplay jokes in English. Once you know a language well enough to understand jokes that are only funny if you see the double meanings of the words that are used, I’d say you have a pretty solid grasp on it. Then, they’d switch effortlessly right back into Armenian. And they didn’t speak much Arabic that night, but they’re obviously all perfectly fluent in that too. Meanwhile, I’m like, “I kind of speak some Spanish (though not anymore since it’s completely confused with Armenian) and some Armenian… but Eastern Armenian, not Western which means I only understand like 20% of what you say instead of the 40% I would understand if you were speaking Eastern.” Talk about depressing.

Nothing like a beer bottle Christmas tree to get you in the holiday spirit!

Then, I had to attempt to sing Christmas carols in Armenian while reading fast enough to keep up. I did kind of okay… by the end, I was hitting maybe 90% of the words, so we’ll call that a win. I also didn’t realize until almost the last house of the night that most of my group thought I knew ZERO Armenian. I’m at least slightly better than that. A couple of the people in my group were joking about something in Armenian, and I chimed in in English. They all stared at me like I had 6 heads until someone said, “I thought you couldn’t speak Armenian.” HA! I explained that I’m learning and my Eastern is better than my Western but I can understand some and blah blah blah. I know it’s kind of stupid to be excited that I exceeded expectations when the expectations were so embarrassingly low, but hey, I’m going to take what I can get.

I also was apparently expected to fall asleep because “that’s what people do their first time out”. I can proudly say that I stayed awake the whole time, sang at every house, and once again exceeded the embarrassingly low expectations that were set for me.

This building wins.

By the time I got home and to bed, it was 6AM. Church was at 10AM, but Badveli and Maria told me that I could skip if I was too tired. I was going to try to go… until I set my alarm and my phone helpfully told me that my alarm was “set for 3 hours from now.” HAHAHAHAHAHA no chance. I reset it for noon instead, giving me a solid 6-hour night. Still ew, but infinitely better than 3 hours.

I have a new “favorite thing I’ve ever seen”. I’m sure that in the past I’ve said that something was the best thing I’ve ever seen, and whatever it was, it’s been dethroned. By what, you ask? The Grinch. The Yerevan Puppet Theatre version of the Grinch, to be specific.

A few weeks ago, I casually walked by the puppet theatre and saw a new show poster outside. Even though I didn’t understand everything on it, the picture was really all I needed. The Grinch, in all of his green, yarn-haired glory. At that moment, I decided I had to go. Honestly, I would have gone by myself if I had to, but everything is more fun with friends. Plus going to a children’s show solo is even weirder than three grown humans going to a children’s show without bringing any children.

Because how could you not take this picture??

Finally, I got some friends to nail down plans with me. My gosh, it’s hard to get people to commit to anything! My friend Olivia from work and another friend agreed to go. Olivia bought the tickets, and we were good to go! That morning, I sent a text confirming our meeting time with the two of them, and the other friend didn’t respond… Backup plan. Liz, other friend from work, was in the office on Friday, and I re-pressured her into coming with us. She had already said no back when we were figuring out how many tickets to buy, but I told her that it wasn’t going to be long, the tickets were super cheap (only about $2 each), and she would regret not going. Sold. She was in.

This is a horrible picture, but see how some of the seats are folded up for kids and others are down for grown people?

I know that I said Liz would regret not coming with us, but that was a statement based on nothing more than my own expectations for the production. I had no idea that those were actually some of the truest words ever spoken. From the moment we walked into the building, I knew it was going to be good. They were selling popcorn, and kids were running wild. Any theatre that you can eat in is definitely my kind of place… and it was good because I had picked up some snacks for us on the way which we were obviously going to eat no matter what, but it’s nicer when you know you’re not breaking any rules. Also, the seats in the theatre are genius. You can leave them folded up if you’re a kid and need an extra boost, and you fold them down if you’re a grown person.

Okay, the show. How do I even begin to describe the show? We really didn’t know what to expect going in. Since it was at the puppet theatre, did that mean it was going to be all puppets? No. No it did not. A girl with blue yarn hair came running into the theatre to start off the show, and it was nonstop action for 45 minutes after that. Best things about going to something intended for kids:

Food in the theatre

Audience participation is encouraged

Constant high energy because otherwise the kids get bored

Everyone speaks clearly because kids

The words they use are pretty basic because kids

Kids think everything is funny, so the acting is completely over the top

The whole crewHehehehe

I’m sure I could keep going if I wanted, but basically, my major takeaway was that I should have started going to kids’ shows a loooong time ago. I even understood what was going on! The music was all the Christmas songs we know and love, translated into Armenian. The story was slightly different for cultural reasons. Here, people don’t exchange gifts on Christmas. That happens on New Year’s, and Christmas is celebrated on January 6th. I like this way much better because I’ve thought for a long time that gifts on Christmas take away from the fact that it’s about Jesus. That’s especially true for kids because as soon as presents are in the mix, they become the most memorable things. I think New Year’s presents are going to be my new approach to holiday gift-giving. Sorry, I know… I’m always getting sidetracked.

Which one am I? I’m such a good copier that I know it’s hard to tell

Anyway, since Christmas presents aren’t a thing, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” doesn’t make much sense. They decided to go with the much more direct “Who Stole the Gifts?” for the title. The town is obsessed with the new year. They do not live in Whoville. Cindy Lou Who is Dzyun Anushik, aka sweet snow (kind of weird no matter what, but slightly less weird because Anush/Anushik is an actual name). Santa Claus is Dzmer Papik, aka Grandfather Winter. The Grinch hates the new year because he was born green (GREEN! *gasp*) and therefore had no friends, was loved by no one, and never got any presents.

The first song of the show was crazy and energy-filled, and I didn’t even care that they were people and not puppets. Then… song #2… PUPPETS. No clue why they were necessary (they really weren’t), but I’m never going to complain about something like that. The dog, Max, was also a puppet, handled by a puppeteer in a white jumpsuit and hood.

The Grinch, Max, and the puppeteer

It had everything I hoped for and more: stupid humor that the kids LOVED, audience participation, puppets, bad lip syncing, hilariously translated Christmas songs, PUPPETS, dancing, and a feel-good ending. And I understood most of it!

Curtain closing. Encore, encore!Puppet displaysLike I said, the supermarkets are completely swamped. At this one, they had extra stock piled in front of all of the shelves so that they wouldn’t run out of things. One part hilarious, one part brilliant. And also much harder to navigate your way through the store because you simultaneously have more people and less aisle space.

When we left, we all agreed that it was valid to say that missing out on the show was something to be regretted. Thank goodness because I was just making that up to convince Liz to come. It was the perfect way to kick off the holiday season and holiday VACATION!

I’m so excited to have some time off work and to go to Lebanon! Work has been chaotic, and I can tell that I need a break. The construction project is coming along, and they think it should mostly be finished by the beginning of February! I can’t believe I’m going to get to see the finished product! Everyone takes off during the first week of the year between New Year’s and Christmas, so luckily that means I’m only going to miss a week of work for my trip which isn’t a big deal.

Otherwise, the city has been crazy with everyone getting ready for the holidays. All of the supermarkets are swamped, traffic is insane, and there are just people everywhere. I’m excited to experience the New Year’s festivities!

More light pictures! LOOK AT THISI think this is my favorite one so farInside a light ornament with Liz and Daniel, a guy from my language class

It’s weird being away from home for Christmas. It’s even weirder being away from home for Christmas and having no one around celebrating. In some ways, I think that’s made it much easier. I don’t have to look around here and see everyone celebrating with their families while my family is halfway around the world. Instead, today was just like every other day. People went to work, kids went to school, and stores were open.

Nativity scene on Northern Avenue

When it comes time for Christmas to be celebrated here, on January 6th, I’ll be in Lebanon! I’m going to visit Badveli Nishan and Maria, family friends who moved there this year (shout out to Badveli’s blog for interesting musings on life in Lebanon). They came to Armenia for a week back in October, and we were able to meet up a couple of times. While they were here, they invited me to spend Christmas with them in Beirut! I’m super excited to get to see them, experience Christmas in a new place, and be surrounded by adoptive family for the holidays!

I made some earrings to get into the holiday spirit!

Even though it’s an adjustment not being home for the holidays, I have been making some new, good friends here which makes it easier. It was hard after a bunch of my friends from the summer left, and over the last month or so, things started falling into place again, both with brand new friends and reconnecting with some old ones.

At work, we have a really fun group! Besides me, there are three other people volunteering there, Hagop, Liz, and Olivia. They’re all nice, and two out of three of them are going to be here longer than I am! That means no hard goodbyes with Hagop and Olivia because it’s always easier to be the leaver rather than the left. I’ve started talking more with Yelena, one of the full-time staff at work, and she’s great too. Feeling like I have a little community there makes going to work much more enjoyable.

Ice skating with Zoe

I also made a new friend at church, Zoe. She’s going to be in Armenia for at least a year, so there’s another person who I don’t have to worry about leaving me! We went ice skating together a couple weeks ago, and once you’ve been ice skating with someone, your relationship reaches a whole new level… one hour of skating in circles, trying not to fall or skate over a child, and talking about anything and everything. It’s quite the friendship exercise (both physically and emotionally).

I think it’s cool to have friends from all different parts of life because then you get to bring them together and see what happens! My birthday was a perfect opportunity for that. For the opera, our group was me, Liz, Olivia, Zoe, and Gabrielle who is a friend from my old language class. Only Liz and Olivia knew each other ahead of time, and it was a ton of fun! When we went out for dessert afterward, Olivia and Gabrielle swapped out with Faith and Alina, a Birthright friend and an ex-BR friend who is now working in Yerevan. I like getting to see people connect, and when you’re friends with a bunch of different people, you feel like it’s only right that they meet and like each other.

Cake for Zoe’s Christmas Eve birthday

I’ve been trying to be less of a hermit (it’s too easy to let that happen when you live alone), and that requires an active effort which can be a struggle. That’s especially true when work nights are involved because all I want to do on non-language class days is go home and sleep! A couple weeks ago, I went with Hagop and Olivia to a screening of a genocide documentary called “Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial, and Depiction”. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, and it turned out to be incredibly interesting. I have seen and read plenty of things about the Armenian Genocide, but this took a different approach than most. It followed the filming of the movie “The Promise”. There were mixed reviews on the quality of the storyline in that movie, but that’s really not the point. The point is that for years, people have been trying to make a major, mainstream movie about the Armenian Genocide, and every time, it’s been shut down somehow due to pressure from the Turkish government. The US has strategic reasons for wanting to stay on Turkey’s good side, so rather than standing on the side of justice, the US government has failed to acknowledge and condemn the actions of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago and has even contributed to pressuring production companies to abandon projects.

See? Don’t we look like old friends?

This documentary told the story of the genocide while also weaving in other stories: what happened to previous attempts to make a movie like this, people’s individual experiences during the genocide, impacts of the persistent denial, etc. It also gave some genocide deniers a chance to speak, and that was interesting because I’ve never heard anything like that before. I guess I should have known that such people existed considering that there are even people who deny the Holocaust happened, but it was strange to actually hear the voices of denial. They say that it was a war and that yes, many Armenians died, but that’s what happens in a war, and many Ottoman Turks died as well. Forget the fact that a huge number of the Armenians were women, children, and the elderly and that the Ottoman Turks were mostly able-bodied soldiers… Anyway, it was surreal and a little discomforting to hear people questioning something I’ve known as fact for my entire life. I strongly recommend checking it out if you get the chance!

Fountain lights in Republic Square. I love these!!!

I’ve also been making some new friends in my new language class. I haven’t talked about that yet, have I? I’m pretty sure that the last time I mentioned language class, I was raving about how awesome my class was and how well things were going with my teacher and how happy I was. Yeah… so probably the week after that, I was informed that I was switching classes. Devastating. I had the option of staying with my teacher and joining her new class but was warned that it would probably be too easy. After trying to stay with her for one class, I was forced to admit that I needed to get over it and move on. It was kind of cool to see how far I’ve come since my teacher’s new class was at the point where I was probably three months ago, but mostly I was just depressed because I knew that I had to get to know a whole new class and a new teacher.

Now, it’s been about three weeks with my new class, and it’s not so bad. This class is definitely at a higher level than my original class, and it’s pushing me to learn more. That’s good I guess. I’m still getting used to the teaching style and the other students, but I’ll get there. The best part is that everyone in the class can read Armenian which means no more transliterating words on the board. A recommendation for anyone seriously trying to learn a language with a different alphabet – learn the alphabet as soon as possible because it makes everything else SO much easier. At least with Armenian, there are a bunch of sounds that can’t be described with transliterated spellings, so you’re basically learning everything kind of wrong until you learn the correct sounds of the alphabet. Now that I can read, trying to do anything transliterated is a massive struggle because it all just seems wrong.

Anyway, things are going great for me right now. I feel happy and comfortable in my life here, and that’s exciting! It’s also good because I still have two months to go. If I was feeling unhappy, we’d be in trouble!

I have one word for you, folks: LIGHTS. That’s right, it happened. Today was the official “lighting of the city” ceremony (I just made that name up, but that’s what it was). My coworker and I were talking about the lights just yesterday, and when I got in this morning, she said that she read they were going to have an event in Republic Square at 7PM to turn everything on. YES.

Me with my coworker, Yelena

From that point on, the day was kind of perfect simply because of the anticipation of the lighting ceremony. That was my go-to topic of conversation with every single person I encountered, and I’ll just say that none of the Armenians were nearly excited enough. They were all like, “Yeah, they do this every year.” SO?? That doesn’t make it any less crazy! Though I guess it’s like anything else where you can become immune to the awesomeness if you let yourself get used to it.

Can we all agree to try harder to live each day with our eyes open? Okay, that sounds stupid if you take me literally. What I mean is that it’s way too easy to get used to the cool things that surround us, and we eventually start walking around without seeing them anymore. It’s even happened to me throughout this year, and sometimes I have to take a second to be like, “HEY! Lara! Wake up! You’re in ARMENIA (/India/Peru/Ghana/fill in the blank) right now. Take a look around, appreciate the awesomeness, and stop being such a goober!” I know, harsh words. No one likes to be called a goober, and the best way to avoid it is to not act like a goober.

Light trees! I don’t think the picture does them justice

Anyway, I need to go on a nighttime city walk now so that I can take a million pictures of all the crazy, ridiculous, insane, out of control, etc etc etc decorations and lights. This place is truly a winter wonderland. Recently, while I was in the middle of some rant about how many lights there are, the person I was talking to said something to the effect of, “But isn’t it like this in the US too?” HAHAHAHA. I mean, yes, there are plenty of excessive holiday decorations, but I have NEVER seen anything on the level of Yerevan. It’s the whole entire city! It’s not just one square or one street or one area. It’s everywhere.

I can’t tell you much of anything about the actual ceremony. Here’s the best summary you’re going to get out of me: It was supposed to start at 7. It didn’t start until at least 7:20. There were some dances and songs that I completely missed because I was too busy yelling at them to just turn the lights on already. Someone sang an Armenian version of the classic “All I Want for Christmas”, though apparently the translation wasn’t even close and ended up being a bit of a love song to the city (shocking… because all we need is another song about Yerevan. If you missed my post about Yerevan’s birthday, just know that there are more songs about Yerevan than about every other city in the world combined). There were people in weird, multicolored animal costumes dancing around.

HUGE tree in front of Opera that is still smaller than the Republic Square treeWith crazy lighting comes crazy wire splices. Can you spot the incredibly safe and waterproof connections?Walking away from Opera. This is from last night, so all of the lights weren’t even on yet!

Finally, the mayor and his family got up on stage and started the countdown from 10. I was jumping up and down from the excitement of the whole thing. I definitely win the award for most excited person over the age of 8. Maybe even just most excited person. The tree lights were not as cool as I wanted them to be, but THE FOUNTAINS. The fountains are the greatest things I’ve ever seen. I need to do a full post of photos of the fountain sculptures because they’re phenomenal. I didn’t get any good pictures tonight because there were too many people, but I promise I will!

You can kind of see a smidge of the fountain lightingSome of the fountains. Try to tell me that this isn’t awesome? And they twinkle a little bit in real life. Kind of mesmerizing.

After the tree lit up, the fireworks started. WHY. Why does every event need fireworks? I hate fireworks, mostly because they’re loud and make me want to hide under a blanket. I only used to tolerate 4th of July fireworks because those came along with licorice laces and other candy that gets permanently stuck in your teeth. To make things worse, here they always set them off WAY too close to people. I spent the entire time with my fingers in my ears and my eyes peeled for potential flying firework debris while simultaneously trying to check out all of the newly lit decorations. Why do you need fireworks when the whole point of the event was turning lights on? It’s basically the same things as fireworks except that nothing is exploding.

Anyway, in summary: today was wonderful, fireworks are the worst, and lights lights lights!!!!! I hope you’re not sick of me talking about them yet because I can promise this won’t be the last you hear of them.

The tree! Take note of how well those spotlight beams are showing up… That’s because of the worse-than-usual smog in the city. Hooray, pollution! We were joking that the city worked hard to get pollution levels up just so that the lights would look good for this event. “Okay, everyone. We’re all going to save our trash burning until Tuesday morning so that we can get a nice smog hovering over the city. Those lights are going to look GREAT!”Republic Square. It was closed off to car traffic again which was so fun! I love walking in the middle of the street.

My resume at the end of this year is going to be a total hodgepodge. In Ghana, I was a farmer, math and English teacher, tutor, computer repairwoman, carpenter, mason, and hole digger. In Peru, I was an engineering teacher, lighting consultant, and electrical surveyor. In India, I was an architect, dance choreographer, Bible storyteller, and English literature teacher. Here, I’ve been an AutoCAD teacher, archaeology laborer (aka bucket carrier), architect, kitchen designer, and content editor… and now, you can add amateur graphic designer and marketing consultant to that list.

Winter wonderland!

With the construction underway on the project at work, I’ve been dabbling in some other tasks. One of the other volunteers and I are determined to broaden the reach of the organization so that they can get more donations. They’re doing awesome work, but it’s not well publicized. If you want people to donate to support your work, you need to show what exactly it is that you’re doing. You need to promote your activities so that more people hear about your organization and are motivated to help. You also need to have a way for people to donate… ideally one that’s functional.

Disclaimer: I’m not a marketing expert. I didn’t study business. I don’t have experience specifically in this field. However, I do have experience with selling things… it started with Girl Scout cookies and led me to every merchandise committee in existence in university. Selling merchandise is all about making products that people will want and then alerting people to their existence. This isn’t so different. We already have products that people want (aka an organization that’s doing good, effective work). Now, we just need to spread the word. Maybe it sounds stupid to equate selling t-shirts with fundraising for an NGO, but seriously, there’s plenty of overlap in skills and thought processes.

Isn’t it just the perfect amount?

Our first project is the website. There’s a lot of information there already, but some things about the way it’s organized are confusing. We’re going to try to reorganize a bit, plus add more information that will hopefully answer some of the questions a potential donor would have about the logistics of the different programs. Anyway, I’ll let you know when it’s finished so that you can critique our work and offer suggestions (because what could be better than crowd-feedbacking? It’s like crowdfunding for ideas).

I also got placed in charge of designing the Christmas card that they send out to all the donors, so that resulted in a full day of me squinting at my computer screen and trying to come up with an idea that wouldn’t be too stupid. I don’t know, I think it turned out okay. I also didn’t have all of the graphic design resources that I would ideally have for a project like this, so I had to get creative with powerpoint and free editing software. It was a fun adventure… and by fun I mean that if I could afford photoshop, I could have finished the whole thing with about 10% of the effort.

The card…. Shh! It still hasn’t been sent out yet, so feel honored to be one of the first crew to see it.

In other exciting news, it snowed here!! It was about a week and a half ago, and it was the best kind of snow… it happened overnight, there was only about an inch, and it was all melted by the time I was walking home from work. You get all the beauty of snow with none of the annoyance! If only the whole winter could go like this… I know that’s not going to happen, though. It’s okay. I’ll enjoy the mild weather while it lasts!

Everything is so pretty under a layer of snowJust enough to hide the litter on the ground and make the world look cleanI was on my way to work when I took this, but if I hadn’t been, I think I would have insisted on taking a quick frolic through the snow.

The city is getting even more out of control with the lights. I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing my rants about the insanity of this city, but you’re going to have to put up with them a bit longer, sorry. They are STILL putting up new decorations. They started when I was home for Thanksgiving, and every time I think they must be out of places to put more lights, I’m proven wrong. There are lights everywhere. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Do you understand yet? No. You couldn’t possibly.

2018! Almost!

There are at least two ginormous Christmas trees, one in Republic Square and the other in front of Opera. Northern Avenue has lights strung up over the entire street like a light canopy. There are light sculptures in every fountain. There’s a Christmas Village on Northern. There’s a light tunnel in Republic Square. There are these massive light arches there too. In front of Opera, besides the huge tree, they have a giant light ornament that you can walk inside, plus big, light-up castles. There are light shapes hanging from the trees, and lights and lights and lights to the point where you think that if they ever turn them all on, all of the villages in the rest of the country are going to have to have their power cut in order to accommodate them (that’s a depressing joke, but it’s also one of those things that unfortunately wouldn’t be surprising).

Using a bucket truck to string the lights over Northern AveNorthern Avenue with only some of the lights turned on… It’s going to be crazy once they get the overhead lights going.Random concert on Northern!More decorations

I still can’t figure out when all of the lights will get turned on, but I am the MOST excited. It’s another one of those situations (like Yerevan’s birthday party) where I think the whole thing is completely ridiculous and beyond crazy, but it’s happening no matter what I think, so why not enjoy it? I have some pictures, but I promise that as soon as more things get turned on, I’ll take so many that your eyes will be permanently damaged from all of the lights shining in them. Okay, maybe not your eyes but DEFINITELY mine. Even with the limited number operating so far, I think I’m permanently seeing spots.